Tertullian — Against Marcion 5.21

For this letter alone its own brevity profited, that it might escape Marcion’s falsifying hands. I wonder yet, when he received letters made to one human, that he refused two to Timothy and one to Titus composed about ecclesiastical status. He affected, I suppose, to interpolate even the number of letters. Remember, inspector, that those things which were treated beforehand we have also proved concerning the apostle, and if any had been deferred into this work we have discharged them, lest either here you think a superfluous iteration by which we confirmed the former matter, or there you hold suspect a deferral by which we dug these out for their time. If you inspect the whole little work, you will judge neither redundancy here nor diffidence there.